This was an interesting account of a British cardiologist with 15 years experience, married to a complete nut who spends all her time and effort imagining scenarios for events she experiences. It definitely had its moments, but most of the plot was taken up with fantasizing totally implausible explanations. I found the plot very tedious and unrealistic, but I’m sure it will have wide appeal to those who like sort of thing.

The ending was absurd considering the geographical closeness of the neighbors, but then … it was fiction – really fictitious!

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Freya and her doctor husband move into an old house they intend to renovate. Freya's next door neighbour Emily soon becomes a good friend as Freya works from home. However not long after their friendship blossoms, Freya and her young daughter disappear. Freya is convinced that Emily's surly husband is responsible.

This is an engrossing mystery which is difficult to put down. Moreover it is a true psychological thriller. However, Freya does so many stupid things that it is quite annoying and lacks credibility. Readers familiar with this genre will recognise the plotting techniques so there are few surprises.

I found Freya to be such an annoying character, and have to admit that I skipped a good bit of the book purely to find out how it ended.
Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read an ARC

Freya and Jack move into a new house together and Freya befriends their new next door neighbour Emily. Flash forward 4 months and Emily and her young daughter, Thea, have gone missing. Freya begins to investigate who would have the motive to make them disappear.

Freya was one of those main characters that was frustrating to read. She spends a lot of time throughout whining and being incredibly exasperating through her actions and jumping to conclusions. She does follow the stereotype of excessive drinking that is so commonplace in thriller books which personally I find overused but the unreliabilty of her as a narrator is well set up.

However, lots of twists and turns throughout kept me guessing right up to the end. The author did spread several clues throughout but even then I still didn't see the twist at the ending. It was only after that I could suddenly join the dots up.

Not my favourite book but a really solid novel. I particularly enjoyed some of the statistics thrown into the narrative about victims of DV. They were very eye-opening to such a common problem. I would definitely read the authors other novels in the future.

***Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced reader copy***

There now, it isn't as intresting as I though.. I agree it's a fantastic thriller and mystery but my problem is it doesn't feel realistic or possible.. I really liked the characters build up of Freya , Jack and Emily..
Goodness guys I don't know how to explain this book or Fraya without spilling out any beans
Anyways it's a great thriller if it's what your looking for.. coming to romance there isn't much to say... But the twist in romance ... That will get you !!

Overall a nice read.. but felt a bit creepy , the tension about Emily and Theya gave me good thinking .. but something felt off ... I guessing it's the strongness and depth of relationships and characters

I loved the ease of writing in this book. So often I read to relax, but get swept into pretentious plots and vernacular. Although this was a cozy comfort book, it was a bit drawn out, repetitive, and I didn't like the ending. At the end of the day, this book didn't leave much of a mark on me, for better or worse.

3.5 stars.

This book is really hard for me to review. At first, I thought it was slow - but engaging - but then it picked up and then the last quarter happened it fell a little.

First, it was slow and long but not unbearably. I think that there are parts that could've been cut, but at the same time, I think in this book, the little details matter. I also found myself becoming more interested in Freya's background issues than in the actual mystery. There were a lot of sensitive issues in this book and I think the author did them justice but I felt more of a connection to them than to the mystery. I think, also because we really only see Freya and Emily's friendship through Freya's flashbacks, at first, the obsession to finding her felt a little off. I also didn't guess the twist but I wasn't surprised at the ending. The ending, which fell a little flat and rushed was what bumped down the rating from 4 to 3.5.

Overall though, this book was engaging throughout and unlike most psychological thrillers, I felt a connection to Freya and both her personal issues and her struggles to find the truth.

A psychological thriller by Chris Merritt which is good in parts. The character development of the main couple is inadequate, which makes the resolution artificial. Neither the cause of the psychosis nor the reason for the obsession are explained and the partner is like a guest star who gets a part to play at the end. The pace also takes a hit with some chapters becoming irrelevant to the plot. A plot with a good suspense which misses the mark. 3.5 stars

Wow! Chris Merritt never disappoints when it comes to psychological thrillers.
Freya and Jack are starting their lives together in a fixer upper home. Their new neighbors, Emily and Michael, have a little girl Thea. When Emily and Thea go missing, Freya is determined to find out what has happened to them. Soon there are multiple suspects, including Jack, and Freya is becoming more paranoid that someone is after her as well. Unsure who to trust, Freya searches for answers, only to come up with more questions. Can she find her friends before the killer finds her?
Lots of twists and turns, suspected the guilty party earlier in the book, but not the ending.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Jack and Freya have moved into their new home.....a project of renovation. Both lead busy professional lives.....jack is a cardiac surgeon whilst Freya works from home making documentaries.

Freya is keen to meet the neighbours....on one side freya, marcus and their daughter Thea. On the other side an elderly woman who often seems forgetful leaving her front door open, at other times as sharp as a pin.

When Emily and Thea suddenly go missing Freya is convinced Marcus has a hand to play in this and makes it her mission to find out the truth. Simultaneously, she is fighting her own demons ,having just suffered a miscarriage. She enlists the help of a therapist to help her through this time which also highlights hidden secrets from her past. As jack uncovers this secret, Freya feels her mental state is being questioned. Even more determined to find Emily, Freya finds her life in danger.

Although i found this book a luttle slow at times, i really enjoyed the story with an ending i didnt predict. Would recommend reading.

Freya and Jack moved into their new home and settled in and got to know their neighbors. Freya grew especially close to her neighbor Emily. As Freya settled into her life and started renovating her house her friend Emily and her daughter disappeared. She became obsessed with their disappearance because months have went by and it seemed nobody was getting any closer to finding them. She was paranoid about everyone and everything so she started sneaking around to check out her hunches. As her search escalated strange things started happening to her and no one believed her. Freya feels she's in extreme danger and there is no one she can trust to help her. I thought the author did a great job of making every character seem guilty and I had no idea what was going to happen. I enjoyed the tension as it built up and really loved the ending.

Ok to be honest I was looking forward to this book but to be honest it dragged so so much. I finished it to know what happened but it seemed like it was never going to end.

I will say the ending surprised me. Didn't see that coming. That have it an extra star for me.

Of you looking for a messy, psychological thriller with a messy back ground this may be for you.

Freya and Jack move in to a new house in a new area for Jack’s work as a Cardiac Surgeon.
Isolated from her friends Freya strikes up a friendship with her neighbour Emily and her daughter Thea. Emily’s husband Michael is a bit odd, Freya’s other neighbour Cathy is also odd but Freya settles in to her new house.
Emily and Thea vanish, Michael doesn’t seem to care, neither do the police, but Freya is sure their disappearance has something to do with Michael.
As the story unfolds, it seems everyone had their secrets, including Freya.

I won’t say anything more about the plot so I don’t ruin it for anyone but for me the book was too long. It felt like there were a lot of filler chapters, where not much happened. There were parts of the story that ended up being irrelevant to the main plot. The reveal at the end was something I saw coming though everything did seem to be tidied up nicely.
Overall, there were a lot of chapters that really slowed the pace of the story down and that’s why it only gets three stars from me.
Thanks to NetGalley, the Publisher and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

A very good domestic thriller from Chris Merritt,The New Home finds Freya and Jack moving into a house whose neighbours seem on the outside to be a loving couple with an adorable little girl Thea but behind closed doors things are different between Micheal and Emily.So when Emily and Thea go missing and the police don’t seem bothered,it falls to Freya to try and find Emily and Thea.But she comes across obstacles everywhere she turns including Jack who thinks her increasing paranoia Is not good for her at all,in fact the only friendly face is Freya’s therapist Laurence who she sees after suffering a miscarriage.The book is written in short chapters which I think is a good thing and keeps you glued to the storyline,although I found the police storyline a bit far fetched because they just weren’t interested in looking for a mother and her daughter ! But overall it’s a good thriller with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing who is doing what and working out who Freya can actually trust.A very good stand-alone 4 star thriller,which I can recommend.

An easy-reading suspense, that kept me guessing until right near the end.

Freya and her fiance Jack move into a house that needs quite a lot of work doing to it, and on moving in meet their next door neighbours, Emily, Michael and their daughter Thea. Freya is happy as Emily seems lovely and she hopes she's made a friend. But Michael is a bit odd and definitely not friendly.

But then Emily and Thea disappear, the police get involved, but nothing ever seems to get resolved. They're just missing persons as far as the police are concerned, but Freya is sure something more sinister has gone on and starts trying to figure it out by herself, mostly by stalking Michael. She ends up breaking into the shed in his garden, and in his house, as she's sure he's killed both his wife and daughter, sets up a Facebook page, and pesters the police with her 'findings'.

Freya does get far too obsessed with everything, especially as she has a miscarriage during all this, and it just seems to send her further down the obsessive road, thinking a variety of people are involved in her neighbours disappearance.

For me this was one of those books that I had to keep reading to find out what happened, as I really wasn't entirely sure until near the end when it was revealed what exactly had gone on. But I did find Freya to be quite irritating in her pursuance of the truth, and quite hard to like.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC.
My first read by Chris Merritt did not disappoint.
The New Home is written from Freyas point of view as the new owner of a property in the London area. She meets and befriends a neighbour who then vanishes.
We follow Freya desperately trying to find out what happened to her friend as she discovers everyone can look like a suspect.
Loved this book, well written and kept me guessing.

Thank you NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review The New Home, prior to its release date. This is my first novel by Chris Merritt and I was pleasantly surprised with the how much I did enjoy it.

This book is based on Freya, Freya has moved into a new house with her fiance, Jack. Freya instantly becomes best friends with her new neighbor, Emily.

Emily's daughter has disappeared. Freya, starts to suspect Emily's husband is involved so she launches her own investigation to find her best friends daughter.

This was a fast paced novel but I feel as though the character development could have been a bit better. All in all I did enjoy this book. There are many twists and turns and an ending you wont see coming.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for my advanced copy.

Jack and Freya move into their new home beside Michael and Emily and their daughter Thea. Freya and Emily become friends until one day Emily and Thea disappear. Emily becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to them.

I almost stopped reading this book several times. I skimmed parts but kept going thinking the big reveal was going to be worth it. This story was drawn out way too much with nothing really exciting in between. The big reveal was not that huge and if I didn’t want to slap every character in this book the reveal may have been enough.

If there's any character in any book who personifies the old maxim, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you," it's Freya Northcott, the main character in this book. But honestly, knowing that didn't decrease my urge to throttle her most of the way through the story. In fact, when other characters urged her to take anxiety-relieving drugs, I kept hoping they'd ignore her refusals, tie her down and get 'em in her one way or another.

But paranoia also can make for a don't-want-to put-down adventure, and this tale qualifies. Freya and her fiance Jack have moved to a fixer-upper home in the London suburb of Waybridge, which is closer to the hospital where he works as a cardiology consultant. Freya is a developer/producer of video documentaries, but she has no projects in the works at present, in part because the pandemic has put the brakes on most parts of the economy. She also has a vivid imagination, which can be helpful in her professional endeavors. In her private life? Maybe yes, maybe no.

When she and Jack first meet Emily and Michael, the couple next door, for instance, Freya gleans a hint that Jack and Emily aren't strangers. When they meet the elderly Cathy, the neighbor on the other side of the house, Freya intuits that life isn't all roses for Emily and Michael. When Emily and her young daughter Thea go missing, then, it's an easy leap for Freya's ever-suspicious mind to conclude that Michael is the culprit.

Something else that happens to Freya sends her paranoid genes into overdrive; after that, she vows not to stop until she's found Emily and Thea even though logic tells her they're dead. From that point on, she pretty much goes bonkers - going places and doing things that "normal" people - including the police and her fiance - consider both illogical and downright illegal. All the while, she rationalizes that she's doing it in the best interests of her close friend Emily (whom she's known for all of a few days total).

Needless to say, at least some of Freya's illusions may be real; as readers learn along the way, several characters aren't exactly who they claim to be (i.e., they have secrets they'd rather not be revealed). So how does Freya sort out truth from fiction (maybe more to the point, how can readers know who's who and what's what)? By the somewhat surprising end - in fact, even after it - I'm not totally sure any of us has a good answer. But getting there certainly was an engaging adventure - as expected from this talented author - and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.

The New Home is a suspenseful story about Freya and her neighbor, Emily, who has suddenly disappeared, along with her daughter, Thea. Freya, unhappy with the lack of interest after the newness of the disappearance has worn off by detectives, takes it upon herself to discover what happened to her new neighbors. Along the way, she questions Emily’s husband’s, Michael, role in her disappearance, as well as what possible connection her fiancé, Jack, has to Emily from the past. And what is it about Freya’s elderly, off-kilter neighbor, Cathy, that puzzles Freya about how much she clearly knows about what has happened and who the neighbors are?

As I was reading, I found myself not particularly caring for the character of Freya. I felt she was a little flat and the predictability of her obsessive quest to find out what happened to Emily and Thea exhausting. Yes, I appreciated the expected twists and turns as the story progressed, but when the psychological “whodunit” was revealed, my reaction was more meh than shock or surprise. I finished the story in a short period of time, but it was more to fulfill my ARC obligation to read and review than wanting to know how it ends. How does it end? No spoilers, but it ends in a neatly wrapped package.

#netgalley #arc #thenewhome